Next week at the American Educaitonal Research Association meeting in Montreal, Kathleen Rhoades, a researcher at Boston College’s Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy, will present an analysis of how news about educational testing is “framed” in the media.
Rhoades research–which was funded by the Ford Foundation–explores how reporters framed testing stories in 2001-2002. “Framing” establishes the range of discourse for a news issue–what is emphasized is judged worthy of attention and what is de-emphasized is implicitly set aside as unimportant.Rhoades found one overarching frame, labeled Accountability and three sub-frames: Market Forces, Analysis and Student Stakes.
Rhoades also found that all of these news frames advocated the use of testing as the primary means for reforming schools. Moreover, she found no news frames critical of this perspective. Thus readers were given a one-sided view of testing issues in news.
All four of these frames promote the “official” (e.g., Bush administration, NCLB, corporate) view that tests can and should be used in determining: accountability for test score performance (Accountability frame), school quality (Market frame), general educational quality and equity (Analysis frame), and student eligibility for grade promotion or graduation (Student Stakes frame).
See previous posts to this blog on testing which illustrate why the “official” view is problematic.
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